Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

162 Pages·2020·13.016 MB·English

by  Sunita Sinha

Marginalized Voices in
American Literature
Margins and Fringes
Edited by
Sunita Sinha
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Preface
I’ve had enough
I’m sick of seeing and touching
Both sides of things
Sick of being the damn bridge for everybody
The bridge I must be
Is the bridge to my own power
I must translate
My own fears
Mediate
My own weaknesses
I must be the bridge to nowhere
But my true self
And then
I will be useful
The above poem by Donna Kate Rushin voices the rejection
of the role as an alienated person which discusses the idea that
black women always live in the liminal space between race and
gender issues, and cannot pick a side—they are always explaining
issues of race to white women, and issues of gender to black men.
The book makes it clear that women of color—no matter their
racial or ethnic identities—are banding together for the sake of
democracy and human rights.
Marginalization is a universal issue that has an adversarial
effect upon societies around the world. The OECD report
‘Equity, Excellence, and Inclusiveness in Education’ reveals: “The
challenge we face is how to ensure our education systems give
every child the quality learning experiences they need to develop
iv Preface
and realize their individual potential, and to do so in ways that
value who they are, their language, identity, and culture. How
do we harness diversity, create fairness, and ensure our learning
environments engage and achieve the best outcomes for all
individuals, not just a few?”
In her collection of her provocative essays on Third World
art and culture, Trinh Minh-ha offers new challenges to Western
regimes of knowledge. Bringing to her subjects a profound
sense of the various denotations of the marginal, she explores
issues “such as Asian and African texts, the theories of Barthes,
questions of spectatorship, the enigmas of art, and the perils of
anthropology.” Marginalization at the individual level leads to
an individual’s exclusion from significant involvement in society.
The marginality of a person may be the result of exclusion from
the society by its other members, or it may be a choice made
by the individual. Being marginal may form an essential part
of a person’s identity, for this makes it possible to differentiate
oneself from the values of the wider society. On the other hand,
being excluded from one group often opens up an access to
another group. People who are identified as marginal within
the traditional Western culture may be viewed as existing in “an
elsewhere-within-here”. They live in a marginal reality within
a society and culture, which is not, however, as strictly banned
from the world of the mainstream as it could seem. Commenting
on the marginal status of Man, the American urban sociologist,
Robert. E. Park states, “The marginal man...is one whom fate
has condemned to live in two societies and in two, not merely
different but antagonistic cultures.... His mind is the crucible in
which two different and refractory cultures may be said to melt
and, either wholly or in part, fuse.”
Marginalized groups often confront compound alternatives
in interpreting and representing their own identities. They may
choose, or feel impelled, to assimilate to the patterns and beliefs
of the dominant group, thus renouncing alternative identities, or
at least judging them by the standards of the dominant group and
weakening the collective bonds which had defined them as a group
in the first place. Alternatively, they may choose to highlight an
independent separate identity in contrast to dominant norms and
Preface v
to act this out as demonstrably as possible, drawing individual
pride and collective strength from such challenges. Such a move
may run the risk of increasing the isolation of marginalized groups
and prompting a repressive backlash from the dominant group if
it feels its power is threatened. It may also produce a new set of
dominant norms within the marginalized group itself, resulting
in new fractures and experiences of marginalization for those
members who are unable or unwilling to comply. In reality, most
marginalized people steer a path between these two extremes,
developing a multifaceted identity and negotiating complex
relationships with a wide variety of individuals and groups.
In her collection, In Search of Our Mothers9 Gardens:
Womanist Prose, Alice Walker remarks, “When we have pleaded
for understanding, our character has been distorted; when we
have asked for simple caring, we have been handed empty
inspirational appellations, then stuck in the farthest corner.
When we have asked for love, we have been given children. In
short, even our plainer gifts, our labors of fidelity and love, have
been knocked down our throats.” Phillis Wheatley, an American
poet, spent most of her life entangled in a collision of cultures.
Her poetry speaks much about colonial society in eighteenth
century New England and its hierarchal relationships. As a
Christian, a slave, a woman, a poet, and an African, Wheatley
experienced racism on various fronts. Her poetry gives insight
into marginalized groups in colonial America often quietened
due to illiteracy.
The anthology opens with Billy Bin Feng Huang’s scholarly
paper, “‘It’s All in My Letters!’ — On How Phillis Wheatley Has
Voiced Her Protest From Behind an Epistolary Mask”. Huang
tries to demonstrate that Wheatley has applied the same strategy
in her letters; that is, she has built an epistolary mask, from which
she has voiced her protest against enslavement. Jeffery Moser’s
article, “Marginalization and Faulkner’s Melancholy: The Blues,
Southern History, Black and White Consciousness, and Faulkner’s
That Evening Sun", shows a deep concern about race and a keen
sensitivity to the changes in art and literature happening around
Faulkner, especially with regard to the movement of modernism.
It studies the great and arduous struggle of Faulkner in the
vi Preface
advocacy for the civil and economic rights of African Americans,
and eventually, of all Americans. In their analytical article,
“Wandering Jasmine: A Roped-off Life”, Carole Rozzonelli
and Alessandro Monti focus on the issue of marginalization of
South Asians in the United States and try to investigate the white
Americans’ inability to embrace the racial difference of an Indian
immigrant. Priyankar Datta’s essay, “Marginalized Voices in J.D.
Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye” points out that the recent trend
of literary analysis on the basis of literary theories has presented
diverse causes of marginalization—gender (Feminist criticism),
power (Post-Colonial criticism), economy (Marxist criticism), etc.
but Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye does not belong to any of
these categories because its protagonist Holden Caulfield is an
adolescent whose main trouble is that he does not want to grow
up. This unrealistic attitude counts for his marginalization. Reena
Mitra’s article, “J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in The Rye: A Modern
Rendition of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn”, tries to express how teens are marginalized in the society.
It discusses how the most of American societies reject those who
suffer from mental illnesses or disorders. Mitra’s second article,
“Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine: An Immigrant’s Peregrination
from Defiance to Resolution”, aims at discussing the marginal
identities in the fiction of Mukherjee. It tries to explore the
feminine anguish emanating out of their marginal status in the
society. Bhaskar Roy Barman’s article, “Alex Haley’s Roots: The
Saga of Black Myth”, examines the trauma, pain of dislocation, of
rootlessness and unbelonging. Mehar Fatima’s article, “The Kite
Runner: Voicing the Unheard”, tries to express human cultures,
sentiments, believes, and practices of those who lived unknown
and unconsciously find their voices heard through diaspora with
realization of rooted identities, gains and losses of ideologies.
Goutam Ghosal, in his article, “The Killers—Hemingway’s
Prose Art and Social Commitment”, tries to study the plight of
underrepresented people in American society—misogyny, racism,
and in general a troublingly nonexistent concern for minorities,
or anyone who is not white and male. Sarani Ghosal Mondal’s
article, “Celie in The Color Purple: Acquiring Voice through a
Womanist Quest”, explores the struggle of black women who
Preface vjj
rise to power and acquire a subjective voice of their own through
a series of blows at home and outside. Sneha Sawai’s article,
“Reclaiming Oneself: Subaltern Perspectives in Toni Morrison’s
Beloved”, ably delves into the complexity of being a black woman
in a patriarchal racist society. It presents a penetrative insight
into the black community in the United States, its utility and its
colorful and bright nature in the opposition to the lethality of
its situation in the world of unevenness, separation, injustice,
and lack of understanding and communication between whites
and blacks.
We may conclude with Martin Guevera Urbina’s remark in
his book, Twenty-first Century Dynamics of Multiculturalism:
Beyond Post-racial America:
After centuries of marginalization and neglect, we need
to cast our own movements, projects, and ideas as a
battle for relevancy in the face of historical manipulation,
exploitation, and oppression. We need to fight, tooth and
nail, for equity in all areas of social life. One point to
make clear, ethnic and racial minorities are not looking
for scraps or a handout from the old paternalistic system
but an equitable, stable, and leveled playing field.
This study brings marginal issues to the fore and offers readings of
a wide range of contemporary American literature that represent
characters or communities at the margin of society.
I wish to express my gratitude to the contributors in this
editorial venture, who enthusiastically contributed to this project
and enriched the anthology with their perceptive papers.
I am particularly thankful to Dr. K.R. Gupta, Chairman,
Atlantic Publishers and Distributors (P) Ltd. for the confidence
evinced in me and for seeing the book through the press.
Sunita Sinha